


If I Leave, Stay

by WhatIsAir



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, First Kiss, Humour, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Matt Murdock Needs a Hug, Matt needs help with feelings, Pining, Some Crack, so does foggy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-21 02:47:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6035023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhatIsAir/pseuds/WhatIsAir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If the moan that escapes Matt’s lips is any indication, Foggy’s coffee-making skills really managed to hit the spot.</p><p>“Good?” Foggy asks, smirking.</p><p>OR, 5 times Matt needs reassurance/comfort from Foggy, and 1 time he doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If I Leave, Stay

The first time Matt comes to Foggy drunk, hurt and in need of reassurance is during their second year at college.

“Matt?” Foggy looks up as the door knob rattles, shakes, but doesn’t turn. He gives up the Punjabi linguistics he’s poring over as a bad job and crosses their room to open the door.

“Fooo-ggy!” Matt exclaims tipsily, standing outside with wrecked hair, crooked glasses, a half-unbuttoned shirt and a boldly Sharpied ‘dickwad’ on his chest.

“Come on, buddy, let’s get you to bed,” Foggy says, gently taking his friend’s elbow and steering him towards Matt’s bed. “You look like you could do with some sleep.”

It takes five minutes of Matt’s uncoordinated limb-flailing, Foggy’s hopeless attempts at undoing Matt’s cuffs, and far too many collisions with furniture before Matt’s undressed and in bed.

“Night, Matt,” Foggy says, unable to resist threading a hand softly through Matt’s hair as he does so.

He’s barely turned to make his way back to his own bed when Matt’s voice stops him.

“Stay, Foggy?” It’s soft, plaintive, and said so quietly Foggy has to strain to hear the words.

Foggy turns, unsure. “Stay?”

Matt simply pulls the covers back in response, his eyes darting uncertainly in Foggy’s direction. With his glasses off, he looks younger. More vulnerable. Foggy’s struck (like he is every time he sees Matt sans glasses) by the brown of his eyes, warm and inviting.

Foggy clears his throat when the silence stretches on enough to be awkward. “You got it, buddy,” he says to compensate, inwardly rejoicing because this is obviously a heaven-sent opportunity: when else in one’s life will one be given a chance to sleep(!!!) next to the object of their desire?

He climbs in next to Matt, who immediately wraps an arm around his waist, shifting so his head is buried comfortably into Foggy’s shoulder.

“Thanks, Fog,” Matt mumbles, “You’re the best.” (Foggy tries to tell himself his heart doesn’t miss, like, _all_ the beats when he hears it.)

Foggy stays the whole night, past the point when Matt’s breathing evens out and it’s obvious he’s dead to the world. His arm’s fallen asleep under the weight of Matt’s head and there’s a loose spring from the mattress digging uncomfortably into the small of his back, but one of Matt’s hands is fisted in the neck of his jumper, and if Matt’s not letting go, then neither is Foggy.

-

The next time it happens, it’s a couple years later, when Matt maybe-kinda-totally crashes his and Marci’s anniversary dinner.

It’s a fancy place, with a skyscraper view of NYC, a live orchestra playing in the corner, and more faux-chandeliers than Foggy cares to count. He and Marci are waiting for the main course (lobster, of course) when the elevator doors on the far side of the restaurant slide open and an extremely harried Matt dashes out, cane in hand.

“Foggy!” he shouts, throwing an arm out and catching an unsuspecting waiter by the front of his shirt. He yanks the man by the lapels towards him. “Foggy Nelson, table reserved for two. Show me to him. _Now_!”

He releases the man’s collar and at once the unfortunate soul scrambles to obey, taking Matt’s elbow without being prompted and bringing him to Foggy’s table. By this point the live orchestra has stopped, and the other diners have turned from their lobsters and steaks to survey the scene.

“Matt, what –” Foggy says, glancing between the waiter and Marci for help. (The waiter turns tail and flees; Marci simply rolls her eyes and turns her attention to Twitter.)

“I need to talk to you,” Matt says, and Foggy would have to be blind (ha, ha) not to see the way Matt’s lips are pressed into a hard, firm line, the way Matt’s free hand is trembling.

“Yeah, of course.” Foggy pushes his chair back. “Excuse us for sec, Marce. This won’t take long.”

Foggy sees the disappointment cloud Marci’s face but finds that he can’t bring himself to care, not when Matt’s so obviously stricken.

“What is it, buddy?” he asks, once the two of them are in the rest room, away from the prying ears of literally every other person in the restaurant.

“It’s –” Matt swallows, hands clutching the edge of the sink, his shoulders pulled taut with tension. “It’s Marci.”

Foggy’s stomach drops. “What about her?”

“I –” Matt winces, weighing his next words. “She’s – um. She’s gotten the place at Landman and Zack, the one we turned down.”

“Right,” Foggy says, confused, because Matt’s still hunched over, radiating tension, almost as if in anticipation of a blow.

“You’re – Foggy, you’re not –?” Matt asks, finally, the surprise evident in his voice as he turns to face him.

“No, course not,” Foggy says reassuringly, without a single clue what he’s ‘not’, exactly.

Matt cocks his head to the side (he reminds Foggy of a bird sometimes) before the tension abruptly drains from him, leaving him slumped against the porcelain.

“I thought you’d be furious,” Matt admits, speaking to the floor. “I thought – since _I_ ’d told you not to accept the offer from L and Z in the first place, and now our business is non-existent and we both live in shit-holes, and. It’s all my fault, Foggy.”

“Matt, hey,” Foggy says, stepping closer (because fuck personal space and _propriety_ ) and resting a hand on the back of Matt’s neck. “It is not your fault, Murdock. I made that choice, too, and I’m prepared to live with it.”

Matt makes a sound suspiciously close to a sob and Foggy is suddenly intensely grateful for Matt’s glasses, if only so it saves Foggy from seeing whatever expression is on Matt’s face right now.

“And hey,” he adds, nudging Matt with his shoulder, “At least _my_ shit-hole isn’t directly opposite a fucking neon billboard or whatever.”

That startles a laugh out of Matt, and as Foggy claps his shoulder and makes his way out, back to the restaurant proper and back to Marci, he almost misses the quiet ‘Thank you’ that Matt says after him.

-

The third time it happens, Foggy is _so_ unprepared.

There’s a faint knocking one Wednesday night as Foggy lies sprawled on the sofa, trying to read up on tomorrow’s case. Foggy stumbles to his feet and makes his way to the door; there’s no one outside. The knocking comes again, more insistently this time, and it takes Foggy far longer than it should to notice that the knocking’s coming from the window.

He pulls back the curtains to see Matt, dressed all in black and crouched on the fire escape outside. The deep cut across Matt’s cheek is evident despite the dim lighting coming from the street below.

“Matt, _shit_ , what happened,” Foggy babbles, pushing the window open and watching as his friend climbs on shaky limbs into his apartment.

“Fuckers tried to steal my wallet,” Matt mutters, reaching an arm out and holding on to Foggy’s shoulder to steady himself.

“Tried?”

Matt’s lips pull back from his teeth in what appears to be half a pained grimace, half a victorious grin. He digs in his back pocket and produces his wallet. “They almost got it, too,” Matt says ruefully, “And they took my cane.”

“That’s too bad, buddy,” Foggy says, patting Matt between the shoulder blades in what he hopes is a conciliatory manner.

Matt makes a pained noise. It’s small and involuntary and Foggy almost misses it, but he’s been attuned to Matt and his tells since their first day of college, and he knows exactly what it looks like when his friend is in pain and trying to hide it.

“What is it,” Foggy demands, hands fluttering uselessly, “Matt, what is it?”

Matt flinches, hunching in on himself. “It’s nothing, Foggy, I’m fine.”

“Bullshit.” Foggy stretches out an arm, and when Matt doesn’t shy away, curls it around Matt’s neck, pulling him into a hug.

“Fog, what –” Matt’s voice is muffled against the side of Foggy’s head, his breath ruffling Foggy’s hair. “Fog, I’m _fine_ ,” Matt mumbles, even as he winds an arm around Foggy’s waist, leaning his whole body into the embrace.

“Yeah, you are,” Foggy murmurs, fancying he can hear the sounds of their heartbeats, beating in tandem. _Or at least, you will be._

-

Then Foggy stumbles across the masked vigilante in Matt’s living room and realizes he’s been played rather brilliantly by his best friend. The next day when he goes in to work, the first thing he does is bin the ‘Nelson and Murdock’ plaque. He spends every day after that pretending Matt doesn’t exist (an incredible feat given that Karen, Matt and himself are the only ones in the office).

He goes home after work one night and turns the TV on, trying to tell himself he’s not _worried_ or anything. The 9 o’clock news brings with it a report that the local Hell’s Kitchen fire department has been blown up, and Foggy’s stomach drops.

“ _Dammit_ , Matt,” he whispers, as the TV plays footage of their local vigilante fleeing the scene.

There’s no knocking this time; Matt simply slides his window open and slips in, limping silently over to where Foggy’s sat, frozen and unsure, on the sofa.

Matt stops, hovering awkwardly next to the coffee table. He clears his throat. “Foggy, I’m sor –”

“– It’s fine,” Foggy says, not because it is, but because he’d like it to be. He stands, heads to the fridge. “Can I get you anything?”

“I – no.”

Foggy looks up to see Matt still standing, head bowed and hands shoved into the pockets of his combat pants. His shirt’s torn in several places and a purpling bruise is forming along his jaw. Foggy’s heart clenches at the sight.

He abandons the fridge and heads instead to the cupboard, pulling out assorted items as he does so. A glance at Matt shows that he’s listening intently, his head cocked to one side. (It makes him look rather like a bird, Foggy thinks.)

“Voil _à_ ,” Foggy says, five minutes later, setting a steaming mug of decaf mocha in front of Matt.

Matt frowns, nose crinkling in suspicion as he sniffs the air. “Is that… cinnamon, nutmeg and _cheese_ in there?”

“Hey, that’s cheating,” Foggy says, “You’re not allowed to use your super nose-powers. And don’t diss it before you try it.”

“Fine.” Matt brings the mug to his lips and takes a cautious sip.

If the moan that escapes Matt’s lips is any indication, Foggy’s coffee-making skills really managed to hit the spot.

“Good?” Foggy asks, smirking.

“Best thing I’ve ever tasted,” Matt says, with foam smeared across his upper lip. (Foggy wants to lick it off.) “Thanks, Fog.”

They spend the night watching (or in Matt’s case, listening to) a documentary on penguins, although Foggy can tell Matt loses interest about a third of the way in. By the fourth commercial break Matt’s head is pillowed comfortably on Foggy’s shoulder; Foggy takes care not to shift too much in case it jostles any of Matt’s recently incurred injuries.

“’M not made of glass, Foggy,” Matt grumbles sleepily, pushing at Foggy’s rib cage. “You’re not gonna hurt me.”

 _But_ , Foggy thinks, Matt’s head on his shoulder a reassuring weight, _But the Russians might. Or Fisk might, and I can’t let that happen._

-

Foggy beats Matt to it this time. He picks Matt’s lock (he’s learnt a few things since college) and sits waiting for him to come back.

There’s a faint rustle, and Foggy turns to find Matt perched on the window ledge, his suit a red imprint against the night sky.

“Do you ever use the front door?” Foggy asks, amused.

There’s a pause as Matt hops from the ledge to land, catlike, on the balls of his feet. He pulls the mask off, his hair sticking up in gravity-defying directions. “Sometimes.”

“Claire called,” Foggy says, because he figures he owes Matt an explanation for breaking and entering. “Said to check up on you tonight, and that if you weren’t back by 12, to check all the local dumpsters.”

Matt’s lips curl upwards almost imperceptibly. “She told you about the dumpster, huh?”

“Not your finest moment, bro,” Foggy says, shaking his head. “I’m shaking my head in disappointment, by the way. I expected more from El Daredevil.”

A shadow passes Matt’s face. “You wouldn’t be the only one,” he mutters, tossing his mask onto the sofa and striding past Foggy, into the bathroom.

Foggy hears the tap being turned, followed by the sounds of running water, and decides to leave Matt to his shower. Five minutes later, Foggy looks up to see steam billowing from under the bathroom door.

“ _Shit_ ,” he says emphatically, tripping over the coffee table in his haste to get to Matt. “Fuck, _ow_.”

He finds the door unlocked and eases it open, coughing as the billowing steam envelopes him, making it difficult to breathe.

“Jesus, Matt,” Foggy says when he reaches the shower, his heart lodged somewhere in the vicinity of his throat.

Matt’s sat in the shower, stripped down to his boxers and hugging his knees. He’s got the tap turned all the way up to the highest setting, and the skin of his back is flushed red and raw by the boiling water sluicing down on him.

Foggy reaches over Matt’s head and turns the shower off, plucking a fresh towel from the rack and wrapping it around Matt, who hisses when the cotton touches his abused skin.

“C’mon, let’s get you cleaned up,” Foggy murmurs, helping Matt out of the stall and leading him to the sofa.

He procures some burn cream from Matt’s kitchen cupboard (Claire had insisted he stock up on some after his run-in with Nobu) and returns to find Matt standing by the sofa, shivering from the cold but with a determined set to his jaw.

“You don’t have to keep doing this, you know,” Matt says out of nowhere, his body radiating tension.

Foggy frowns. “Keep doing what? Patching your sorry ass up? Because newsflash, buddy, if I hadn’t, you wouldn’t be standing there right no –”

“– I know, Foggy, I _know_!” Matt’s voice rises to a shout, hands curling into fists by his side as he advances towards Foggy, until they’re feet apart. “It’s always you, isn’t it. Always _you_ that I come running to whenever things go south, _you_ who put me back together and _you_ who find out that I masquerade as a fucking vigilante half the time and still stay!”

“I – would you rather I leave?” Foggy snaps, his ire rising.

“No – _no_ ,” Matt says forcefully, genuine terror in his voice, as though Foggy leaving is the worst thing that could ever happen to him. (Or maybe that’s just Foggy’s mind being its usual fanciful self.) “Foggy, that’s not what I – no. I just – why? I keep taking, and taking, I never give anything back and – you’re still here. _Why?_ ”

 _Oh, Matt._ Foggy raises an eyebrow. “I would’ve thought the answer to that’s pretty obvious, Murdock.”

Matt tilts his head in confusion, and Foggy’s struck once more by his eyes, hazel and chocolate and golden-brown at the same time. They widen now, in something akin to realization, and Foggy just _knows_ it’s because Matt can hear his heart, can hear it jackhammering against his rib cage.

And then Matt, or maybe Foggy, or maybe both of them, must have moved because Matt’s lips are pressed against his own, and one of Matt’s hands is threaded through Foggy’s hair. There’s an endless litany of _finally finally finally_ chanting in Foggy’s mind, and Foggy doesn’t think he’s ever been this reluctant to die and go to heaven because whatever _paradisio_ awaits him in the afterlife, it sure as hell ain’t beating this.

 

\+ 1

It’s approximately three-thirty (AM, mind you) when Foggy receives the call.

“Nelson speaking,” he mutters, half into the receiver, half into his pillow.

There’s the sound of static crackling, and then – “Foggy?”

In an instant Foggy’s alert, because Matt sounds awful. Like, gone ten rounds with the Russian mafia awful. (Or worse.) Foggy’s heart skips a beat.

“Where are you? Are you hurt?” Foggy demands, keeping the phone pressed to his ear as he hurriedly pulls his jeans on. “Keep talking to me, Matt.”

“I’m – just down the street – at –” Matt says, every breath sounding laboured. “You’ll – see.”

“See, see what? Matt?” Foggy says into the receiver, to find that the line’s gone dead.

Foggy curses, finishes dressing and is out the door in under a minute. It takes him another five to head down the block, where he eventually finds Matt standing in front of a closed furniture store, looking perfectly fine, if a little flushed in the face.

“What is this?” Foggy says, annoyed at having been deprived of some much-needed sleep. “What’re you doing here? More importantly, what am _I_ doing here?”

“I have something to show you,” is all Matt says, enigmatically. He turns and quickly picks the lock of the store, easing the door open and gesturing for Foggy to go in.

Foggy stares at Matt incredulously. “Matt, just so you know, I’m staring incredulously at you,” he says, “Because I am not breaking and entering with you on a Tuesday morning!”

“Relax,” Matt says, “I asked the owner and she gave permission.”

He turns, picking his way across the assorted tables, sofas and lamps until he stops in front of a king-size bed. He fumbles for the light switch and when Foggy’s eyes finally adjust, a fit of uncontrollable laughter seizes him at what he sees.

“Matt, what the _hell_ –” he gasps, doubled over and wheezing, “Is that – what I think it –”

“Yep,” Matt says rather smugly, leaning back on his arms on the avocado-shaped bed. (Even the covers and pillows are green, and C _hrist_ , Foggy is seriously going to have nightmares about that thing.)

Foggy flops onto the bed next to Matt, still laughing. He watches as Matt reaches between the two bright-green pillows and pulls out a small box, watches as Matt slides gracefully off the bed and onto one knee, proffering the box, in which a single, silver band is nestled.

Matt opens his mouth.

“Yes, _fuck_ , yes,” Foggy says, hauling Matt up by the collar of his shirt and kissing him hard enough to bruise, not that Matt seems to mind. He tackles Matt to the bed and kisses him until they’re both panting, out of breath.

Matt grins against his mouth, breath ghosting lightly over Foggy’s lips. “To the best damn avocadoes the world will ever see.”

Foggy smiles, leans down to press a kiss into the dip between Matt’s collarbones. “To Nelson and Murdock, or Murdock and Murdock. I’m not picky.”

Unless, of course, Matt decided to go with double-barreled names, because as much as Foggy loves the man, there’s only so much time in one’s life to be wasted on signing ‘Nelson-Murdock’ on every single piece of legal document required of him.

But then, Foggy reasons, smiling to himself, they have the rest of their lives to figure that out together. And that’s more than enough for him.

**Author's Note:**

> y'all thanks for reading tell me what you thought in the comments this was fun to write(:
> 
> and is anyone else dead bc of the new s2 trailer because i sure as hell am
> 
> our bbys are so strong and brave the part where he says "you've donated more than your fair share" i'm crying why does everything hurt


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